Oregon State boosts Open Source Lab by bringing it into academic fold

Oregon State University is giving its Open Source Lab a major promotion, moving it from a services role within the university into an academic department as part of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The switch will raise the Corvallis lab’s profile and involve dozens more students every year in a program that helped make Oregon a global hub for open source activity.

Oregon State started the lab 10 years ago to make it easier for university departments to use open source software as an alternative to proprietary tools. Open source software is typically developed collaboratively and often free, open to modification by anyone. That means basic software tools can be had inexpensively and customized to meet specific needs.